Renal patient Chris Bartolo is today expected to undergo an eight-hour long kidney transplant that could drastically improve his quality of life, two years after Times of Malta first reported his desperate appeal.
The donor – a family friend who prefers to remain anonymous – would himself need to have a major four-hour operation, explained Mr Bartolo’s former partner, Sarah Borg.
Ms Borg was overjoyed that a kidney match for Mr Bartolo – the father of her son, Zac – has finally been found.
She first drew the nation’s attention to his situation in 2012 when she posted an advert on an online shopping website, Malta Park, requesting a kidney for him.
‘I hope nothing goes wrong at the last minute’
But apart from feeling joy and gratitude, Ms Borg is also very worried because the operation does not necessarily mean the end of Mr Bartolo’s problems.
As with all such transplants, there is a chance that his body rejects the new kidney.
“I hope the transplant will happen and nothing goes wrong at the last minute. I’m hoping and praying it will be a successful operation and that his body will not reject the kidney. It’s basically wait-and-see at this point,” Ms Borg said.
Zac, now 12, is also worried about his father’s operation, which comes while he is studying for his half-yearly exams.
“We went to Mass together and then I took him out to eat Chinese food to get his mind off things. He was gazing into thin air and he told me: ‘Mummy, I cannot help being worried,” Ms Borg said.
She explained that Mr Bartolo and the donor went to hospital yesterday to start preparing for their operations. After the transplant, they will each spend about a week in intensive care.
Mr Bartolo suffered a double kidney failure three years ago when he was 29 and consequently needed several operations.
In February 2012, Ms Borg placed the kidney advert, offering to pay €5,000 to cover medical and other expenses. Then, with Mr Bartolo’s current partner, Anna Galea, she started a joint campaign as his health was deteriorating rapidly.
About 20 people who read their story in the media offered to donate one of their organs.
But the hospital’s live organ transplant advisory committee did not allow any of the potential donors, strangers to Mr Bartolo, to even start the screening process.
It decided that this would go against the principle of ‘distributive justice’ adopted when anonymous people offer to be donors. In such cases, the kidney should go to the person most in need.
The committee, however, accepted that screening take place on a friend who had known Mr Bartolo and his family for years.
Last November, the family was informed that tests indicated that the operation could go ahead and it was eventually scheduled for today.